Quick Chile Relleno Casserole

I kind of have a thing for chile rellenos. My mom LOVES them and would always order them at Mexican restaurants when I was growing up. I never really understood them and thought they sounded gross. Then I tried one and was hooked. Since they're ridiculously unhealthy (filled with cheese, battered, and fried), and I assume not super easy to make at home, I generally don't eat them very often anymore. I was at Walmart on Friday picking up a few things for the husband's birthday yesterday and saw they had Anaheim chiles for $0.10 per pound. I had originally slated us to have steak for our Friday date night dinner, but I hadn't bought any steak yet. I saw the chiles and figured I'd scrap the steak plan and do some kind of chile relleno casserole instead.

At one point several years ago I made a chile relleno casserole in the crockpot, but I had no idea where that recipe was, so I turned to Google. Because isn't that what you do when you need to find something? One of the results that came up was from Food.com, and since I've generally had good luck with recipes from there, I figured it was worth a shot. The first recipe I came across sounded good and had good reviews, but it took almost an hour to bake. Conveniently for me, at the bottom of that page was a link to another recipe for Quick Chile Relleno Casserole. That one sounded much better because it only needed 30 minutes in the oven. It called for canned green chiles, so I modified it since I had fresh chiles I was using. The recipe below is my amended version.

Quick Chile Relleno Casserole
Adapted from Quick Chile Relleno Casserole on Food.com

4 Anaheim chiles
1/2 lb monterey jack cheese, sliced
4 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Roast chiles under the broiler or over gas flame until skin is charred. Place chiles in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let stand at least 10 minutes. Remove skins from chiles while trying to keep chiles intact. Cut a slit in each chile, remove seeds, and stuff with sliced cheese.

Coat an 11x7 baking dish with nonstick spray. Place chiles in prepared dish.

Beat eggs with whisk or electric mixer until thick and foamy. Add milk, flour, and baking powder and beat until smooth. Pour mixture over chiles. Top with cheddar cheese.

Bake, uncovered, in a 375F oven for about 30 minutes or until casserole is puffed and appears set when gently shaken.

*****

The only thing I would change about this would be to use more chiles next time. The husband and I ate the entire dish of this. There was enough of the batter in the dish to accomodate a few more chiles, but since I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them when I bought them, I didn't know how many to get. If I was making this for the whole family I'd definitely up the number of chiles. I used Egg Beaters in my batter as I was saving the eggs we had on hand for a birthday breakfast for the husband, so Egg Beaters were my only choice. Plus I figured it made the recipe that much healthier.

This is something I'll definitely make again. We both loved it. The husband ate his in record time.

Roasted chile stuffed with cheese:


Stuffed chiles swimming in the batter:


Finished product! Oh man...I wish I could have somehow captured the smell of this because it was AMAZING!!